What Is and What Isn't
by LionsandDragons
Summary: Dean would much rather ignore these feelings he has every time a certain angel is around because they're AWKWARD... but Dean hardly ever gets what he wants... or what he thinks he wants...


**What Is and What Isn't**

Dean/Castiel

NC-17

Sam looks at Dean, his eyebrows raised to the edge of his long bangs, "have you seen the way he looks at you?"

Dean throws himself down onto the motel bed, "Dude, what are you talking about?"

Sam pulls his laptop out of his backpack and sets it on the table, "seriously… you haven't noticed?"

Dean huffs under his breath, "noticed what?"

"Don't you remember all those intense, longing, steamy looks that Anna was throwing your way before you did it in the beak of the…" Sam breaks off as Dean laughs.

"Yeah, that was great."

Sam sits down in front of the computer and turns to face Dean, "yeah, not the point. The point _is_ that Castiel looks at you the exact same way."

Dean shrugs and swipes his hand through his short hair, "Sammy, look at me, I mean, even the straightest guy has got to be thinking _I would go gay for him_… I'm freakin' handsome."

Sam doesn't laugh, "yeah, well, you look at him the same way… like you've been in the desert for days and he's water."

Dean hauls himself into a sitting position, "Sam, he's an angel of the Lord, he inspires awe, it's what they do. And it doesn't help that he appears out of nowhere every time he shows up!"

Sam shrugs, "it's more than that, you two have an awareness of one another, and he's always focused on you…"

Dean stands up, anger on his face, "he pulled my ass up from the pit of hell! His damn hand print is seared into my skin! Stuff like that kinda leaves something between two people… can we not talk about this!"

Sam turns to glare at the computer screen, "ok Dean, fine."

But that isn't the end of, not nearly, because now Sam's over active observation skills have alerted Dean to the truth. Now that he can clearly identify the feelings he has around Cass, and not dismiss them as minor panic attacks, he has to find a box to put them in. A box, with a lock, and a sign that states: do not open _ever_.

There it was, just like Sam had said, Cass was looking at him with those huge eyes. Sam was talking, about the signs and the seals and the hunt, but Castiel was looking right at Dean, the gaze weighting him down like the world on his shoulders. And he was staring back, like a sixteen year old looking at a stripper pole for the first time, like nothing had ever been so glorious or fascinating. Why?

Why was her staring? Why couldn't he look away? Sam was talking, but Dean couldn't hear the words, he could only feel, and now that he had been made aware of the sparking connection it was ten times worse. It seemed that every time Cass was around, bad news was sure to follow and life got that much more complicated, so panic attacks seemed like a good excuse for what he felt around the angel.

Dean could feel the pull now too, yanking him forward from a spot behind his navel towards the angel across the room. He could feel the familiar weight on his shoulders moving down, filling his throat, his lungs, his chest until it was like being drunk; you want to move your body, but every action is harder than the one before. And he couldn't breathe, Christ he couldn't breathe!

It was sexual, this tension filling the air around them, Dean was under no illusions now. He _thought_ he was straight, but he _knew_ he wasn't stupid. Everything he had ever thought, every conversation he had ever had about Castiel, with Castiel, came rushing back, quick snippets filling his ears with a buzzing noise.

Uriel, circling him, a bitter strain in his voice, "Castiel has this weakness, see, he likes you."

Anna smiling up at the stars and trying to explain to Dean what an angel could possibly see in being human, "being an angel, it means no feelings, complete faith, complete obedience… and you humans, you have chocolate cake… and sex."

His own words, flying back at him, "… stuff like that kinda leaves something between two people…"

"Dean!" Sam called him like it wasn't the first time he had tried to get his attention, "are you listening to me?"

Dean shrugged, "yeah, m'listenin."

Dean tried to focus as Sam explained to Cass what was going on; at least it took the angels attention away from him for a second. At no other time in his life had Dean ever considered that he was gay. Not that he had anything against gays, but he liked women, loved women… Dean Winchester was a ladies' man! Except it seemed when an angel, who happened to be a guy, decided to raise Dean out of perdition and firmly entrench himself in Dean's messed up life.

Fuck, he was so tired, he wanted to close his eyes and rest, but he never got a restful night of sleep anymore. He wanted to go for a ride in the Impala, but he was afraid to leave Sam alone now… angels, demons, God, Lucifer, death, destruction, all swirling around him. Nowhere was safe. No one could be trusted. Sam was fucking a demon! And now, he was starting to wonder if he had some twisted thing going down with an angel… another angel, not the one he did in the back of the car… and doesn't that just sound fucked up?!

Somewhere their father was laughing… or screaming his head off… at them.

Finally Castiel left, or vanished, with one last look at Dean and the promise that he would be contacting them soon… whatever that meant. Dean just wanted to lie down for a while, maybe, maybe, get some sleep.

So, he left Sam surfing the internet and tried to catch some winks on the hard as a rock motel bed. It didn't take him long to fall asleep.

Dean knew he was dreaming. He was in that state of awareness that alerts you to the impossibility of where you are and what you're doing, but you can't wake up.

He was driving, alone for the first time in a long time. The windows were rolled down, the wind whipping around the interior, through his hair. Black vinyl, smooth under the pads of his fingers as he swiped his hand across the dash, it was like coming home. The soothing hum of the motor traveled up from the seat and the steering wheel, vibrating through every fiber of his being, letting him know her was alive.

This was Dean's version of heaven, whatever it was really like; this had kept him sane in hell… at least for the first 15 years. Just closing his eyes and cutting out the pain and the screaming and the blackness for this image: driving the Impala, riding into the sunset, his firm grip on the wheel as she hugged the back road curves.

Suddenly he felt it, the tingling on the back of his neck, the tightening in his chest. Cass was sitting beside him like he had been enjoying the ride all along.

Cass reached his hands out towards the dash, "I think I'm beginning to understand the human male obsession with these car things… it feels a bit like flying, but slower."

The angel ghosted his hands over the console, like Dean had so many times, with reverence. Dean almost choked, watching another man treat his car like the woman she was, was somehow fascinating and infuriating, sexy and irritating. Dean realized he was jealous, but he couldn't figure out if he was jealous _for_ the car or _of_ the car.

Dean slammed on the brakes, jerking the Impala off the road and to a halt. If Castiel was surprised at all he didn't show it. He just watched Dean climb out of the car and slam the door.

Dean was equally amazed and disgusted with himself. The feelings boiling up from the inside were familiar feelings. It was like every time he'd ever watched a hot chick bend over in front of him. When her calf and thigh muscles tighten and elongate as her jeans stretch over her ass, he can just imagine all that pure female sinew and skin wrapped around his hips. Except this time, the feelings rolling around in his chest and making his jeans uncomfortably tight was a guy… a guy feeling up _his _car!

It wasn't even the feelings that had him disgusted, it was the source. It was the cause, not the effect. Yeah, having a sexual identity crisis at age 29, blows.

Dean sat on the hood of the car and tried to work himself out in the time it took Cass to get out of the Impala. Dean looked up and down the road they were on. It appeared that, his dream-self liked to cruise deserted, two-lane, country roads.

Cass stood in front of him, just kinda looking at him, like he was studying Dean in an attempt to take him apart and put him back together. Apparently angels weren't with the whole awkward social moment's thing, so Dean would have to talk first.

He cleared his throat, "Why is it me?"

"Why did I drag you from hell? I told you, I…"

"No, why did you dragging me from hell create this, this…" Dean tried really hard to come up with a word that didn't sound like a relationship.

"…this connection between us?" Cass looked down the road, his body turned towards the car.

"Yeah," Dean was glad they weren't looking at each other; he hated these kinds of talks, hated awkwardness.

Cass looked up, as if searching for the words, "when I raised you from hell, it didn't just happen in some heavenly blink of an eye, like an instant flash, it took awhile. Once I had you, had a hold on you, I had to fight my way out of there. We had a physical connection for much longer than any angel has ever laid hands on a human."

Dean brought his hand up to his bicep where he knew lay the burn scar of a perfect hand print.

Cass kept talking, "but, in hell, you weren't human."

Dean winced as he thought about the things he had done the last ten years he had been in hell. All those voices, most in his own head, screaming, pleading, for him to stop, but he couldn't. He just kept torturing souls, torturing himself, over and over… God, he was so ashamed.

As if sensing this Cass looked over, "no, Dean, not what you did… your form. Your physical body wasn't in hell; it was in the ground of the earth. You weren't in human form in hell, and when I besieged the gates of hell to get you I wasn't exactly taking my human vessel along for the ride."

Dean looked at Cass, not understanding, "so you really pulled my literal soul up from hell?"

Cass nodded, "it's complicated, but what you need to understand is that the purest part of you, your soul, has been exposed to an angel of the Lord in its purest form and then both of us were thrust into human form."

Dean touched the mark on his shoulder, "so that leaves a mark, deeper than this fugly scar on my skin?"

Cass leaned on the hood of the car, "Dean, an angel pulling a human soul out of hell to make him human again… that's never been done before."

Dean hopped off the hood and turned to face Cass, "so I was some kind of fucking experiment?! What if I had come back wrong?! What if I DID come back wrong?!"

Cass, once again, refuses to be anything but calm, "Do you remember what happened to that seer when she tried to divine my true form?"

Dean pointed to the ground in agitation, "her name is Pamela, and yeah, I remember what happened… you melted her fucking eyes out!"

"That's what would happen to you if you ever saw me in my true form, but it doesn't stop the pure part of you from reaching for the pure part of me every time we're around one another."

Dean laughs bitterly, "I still don't think any part of me is pure… at least, not anymore,"

Cass frowns but ignores the comment, "the weight in your chest, the thumping rush in your blood, the focus you have on me. It's like something inside of you recognizes something inside of me."

Cass looks back at the Impala, "it's like the feeling you get when you sit behind the wheel."

Dean laughs, but it isn't funny, "so I'm not gay… I'm just angel-marked! I don't even know which is worse at this point."

"Why do you humans insist on putting everything into a label?" Cass looks at Dean with a questioning gaze, like he really doesn't understand.

Dean thinks maybe he really doesn't understand, "do you feel it?"

"Yes." Cass doesn't look like it bothers him much, but then again, Dean doesn't know if anything bothers him or if he just doesn't ever let on that anything bothers him.

"I don't like the mark, I don't want it, the feelings, feel wrong." Dean rubs at his chest absently.

"They only feel wrong because you are trying to define them on a human level and the only thing your brain can comprehend is love, lust, passion… all human constructs applied to something that has no human origin." Cass had his logic face on.

Dean didn't like that face, it was also his _I'm always right_ face, "I don't want to define them… I just want them gone. It's like having a panic attack every time you're around."

"You see things all the time that can't be explained and you make peace with the supernatural phenomenon all around you, things that most humans would call fantasy or legend. Yet you use the same mindset that denies these things you believe in to label your relationships to others? How does that make sense?" Cass stood right in front of Dean now, invading his personal space.

Dean shrugged, "yeah, well, no one said humans were logical."

"Are they that bad?"

Dean tried not to look at Cass's face, "What? People?"

"No, the feelings."

Dean doesn't speak. He doesn't speak because he's not sure if he can really communicate how incredibly uncomfortable all these new realizations make him. But it's like Castiel already knows.

Castiel steps even closer, his gaze searching Dean's face, "you should really let yourself just feel it for awhile. Haven't you ever wondered where that tugging sensation would take you if you let it?"

"Wha…" but before Dean can even question the comment Castiel raises two fingers to his forehead and the world shifts.

Dean isn't sitting on the front of his car anymore; he's sprawled in the back seat, soft leather on his back. It isn't day, its night and he isn't alone. In the darkness a solid body tenses against his own, a solid chest whose rhythmic breathing matches Dean's nervous pants of hot air.

Dean's brain clicks into place and he knows where he is, who's above him, whose hips rest between his open thighs. Not a woman, but an angel. Cass has managed to remove bother their shirts, but… oh, thank you Jesus, they still have pants on. Dean is not ready for the pants to come off, in fact, he's not ready for any of it. This is so intense, so foreign to him. Where are the boobs?!

As if sensing the rising panic attack, Cass leans in and kisses Dean. Dean tries not to freak out, oh man, oh man, I'm totally macking a dude right now and, and… well, it's kinda like making out with a girl. Lips brushing one another, feather soft, unsure, and then more insistent, more open. Dean still can't believe he's kissing a guy, and his second angel in as many months… what kind of fucked up is he?

Then he feels it, that familiar choking pressure and its worse. His veins are itching, humming, and it's like something deep inside his chest wants out, wants to crawl deep inside the body above him because that's where it belongs.

Dean groans and gives into the pressure sending a searching tongue into the mouth joined to his. His hands seek purchase on slick skin as he pulls Castiel's chest flush against his own. His skin burns where they meet, but it's so satisfying. Dean breaks the kiss to take a deep shuddering breath. Finally, finally he feels like his body is his own, like he can move again. The firm weight on top of him feels safe, like it's securing him, not strangling him.

He feels teeth scraping the side of his neck, a tongue tracing the edge of his collar bone. He tries to think about ways that men are different: hard, not soft. But, he knows that they're the same in some ways. Dean trails his fingers down Cass's back, around his sides, scraping up his abs (do angels work out?), and then up till he reaches his destination. Dean skims his nails over pebble-hard nipples and is rewarded with a moan against his throat and a sudden hip jerk that rubs Castiel's crotch right up against Dean's.

A light comes on for the second time. Dean recalled being fifteen, who knows what town he was in, what high school he was going to, but he was dry-fucking some red-head under the bleachers; it wasn't like full-on sex, but the friction had been amazing.

With that in mind, Dean lifts his hips, rolling up into the erection that is much like his own. Both men give involuntary, choked groans. Dean is suddenly being kissed again, teeth nibbling his lower lip, dirty, porn kisses that make rutting up into the body above his feel more right than wrong.

Dean takes a deep breath; he smells the familiar scent of his car, the worn leather, and the cool glass windows, currently fogged over. He opens his eyes and gasps, trying to stop the pleased, whining noises from escaping his throat. But he can't calm his hips, moving erratically to create the desperate friction he needs. Sweat drips down from his own body and Cass's body moving above him.

As he blinks, he focuses on Castiel's face for the first time. All the angel's attention is focused on Dean, they lock eyes. He feels the need in his chest, rising up again… the need to be closer and closer to the Cass. Dean sees for the first time the unleashed emotion and need, the desire, reflected back at him and the intensity is like a physical burn to his skin, searing him.

He's so close, so close, and Cass's short, panting breaths are coming faster. Dean brings a hand up to run it through Cass's hair, tugging back so he can lick a drop of sweat running down the angel's throat. Because he wants to… he wants this.

He feels it then, the fire pooling in his belly exploding out, rushing through his body and Dean cries out. He arches up and then bucks forward. He shudders as he hears Castiel's own moan of completion, fading away now, and he sits up alone in a motel room with the sheets tangled around him and Sam snoring in the bed beside him.

And Dean knows it was just a dream.

And he knows it wasn't.


End file.
